Language study -- Latin

The Latin Curriculum

If you have not studied Latin before, the place to start is Latin 1 in either the Fall or the Winter term, followed by Latin 2 in the Winter or Spring and then Latin 3 in the Spring or Fall. In these courses, you learn by doing. You'll begin with very simple picture-sentence combinations and progress rapidly to reading short narratives in Latin that gradually build up your vocabulary and your understanding of how Latin sentence structure is different from English. Along the way, you'll also have some opportunities to study images, floor plans, and bits of history that bring the Roman empire to life.

Once you've completed Latin 3 (or if you studied the equivalent in high school), you'll move into Latin 10 (Topics in Latin) which is offered in both Fall and Winter. Latin 10 exists in more than one version, to explore different aspects of Roman literary culture and its academic study today. All versions of Latin 10 introduce the skills that are needed for reading unadapted texts in Latin, including some as-needed review of language basics. 

As you move past Latin 10, you'll want to check out some of the more advanced Latin classes that are available at Dartmouth. These courses enable you to explore numerous different types of ancient texts: love poetry, historical narrative, scientific analysis and philosophical reflection. Numbering from LAT 20 through LAT 35 is by topic, not by level of difficulty. Consequently these courses may be taken in any order.